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Florida lawmakers begin cracking down on polluters

photo: City of Sarasota employees work to contain a sewage spill. (Florida)

Photo: City of Sarasota employees work to contain a sewage spill. Herald-Tribune archive (2011) Mike Lang

But big questions remain about how far they’ll go

TALLAHASSEE — The crowd packed into a committee room in the basement of the Florida House office building burst into applause last week after Rep. Randy Fine finished delivering an impassioned speech about preventing sewage from spilling into waterways.

“If the sergeant would get the … [more…] “Florida lawmakers begin cracking down on polluters”

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NOAA and partners team up to prevent future Great Lakes drinking water crisis

NOAA and partners team up to prevent future Great Lakes drinking water crisis

Video of Preventing a Great Lakes Drinking Water Crisis

A new video SMART BUOYS: Preventing a Great Lakes Drinking Water Crisis released by Ocean Conservancy describes how NOAA forecast models provide advance warnings to Lake Erie drinking water plant managers to avoid shutdowns due to poor water quality.

An inter-agency team of public and private sector partners, working with the Cleveland Water Department, are addressing drinking water safety for oxygen … [more…] “NOAA and partners team up to prevent future Great Lakes drinking water crisis”

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U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Hawaii Clean Water Act Case

photo: degraded coral reef

Degraded coral reefs at Kahekili Beach Park in west Maui, Hawaii. Peter Swarzenski / Usgs

In a case watched closely both by polluting industries and clean water advocates across the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up an appeal of a Clean Water Act case out of Hawaii concerning treated sewage flowing into the Pacific Ocean from injection wells.

Last March, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals … [more…] “U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Hawaii Clean Water Act Case”

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To fix the reef we first need to fix the land – but where do we start?

photo: To fix the reef we first need to fix the land – but where do we start?

Photo: The Great Barrier Reef, Northern Queensland, Australia

Rivers deliver sediment from land to the ocean. This sediment contains nutrients which can feed microscopic algae in water. But, if there is too much sediment and nutrients, delivered by floods from land-based erosion, algal blooms can occur that have negative effects on the Great Barrier Reef.

The challenge is that sediment comes from many different locations and we need to know … [more…] “To fix the reef we first need to fix the land – but where do we start?”

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Petition against spraying herbicide to be heard by FWC

photo: spraying herbicide into open waters

Special to the Lake Okeechobee News/Courtesy of James Abernethy. FWC employs private contractors at a cost of millions of dollars a year in Florida to spray waterbodies in an effort to control invasive hydrilla.

Advocates of clean water in Florida are jumping on a bandwagon that started rolling late last summer when marine life expert Jim Abernethy of West Palm Beach started a Change.org petition calling for the Florida Fish … [more…] “Petition against spraying herbicide to be heard by FWC”